Markel Group Inc. MKL

Markel Group has delivered a 43.8% gain over the past 5 years, yet the stock is down so far this year, which naturally raises a question about whether the current US$1,727.73 share price is still supported by the returns the business earns on its capital. For investors trying to make sense of that mix, the key issue is how the quality of Markel Group's capital allocation stacks up against what the market is paying today. The 43.8% share price rise over 5 years puts real weight on the...

Mid-cap stocks have the best odds of scaling into $100 billion corporations thanks to their tested business models and large addressable markets. But the many opportunities in front of them attract significant competition, spanning from industry behemoths with seemingly infinite resources to small, nimble players with chips on their shoulders.